Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sprinkler which is useful as an irrigation device for irrigating agricultural or horticultural areas, and seeks to provide a sprinkler which with simple changes, can be used for irrigating a small area or a large area.
Irrigation of small areas of course is well known and is achieved by any one of a wide range of available sprinklers. Irrigation of large areas is also well known, but a difficulty which has been encountered has been the disintegration of a coherent jet of water so that the throw from a sprinkler is limited. It is well recognised that to achieve a long throw it is necessary that the droplets should be relatively large and not in the form of a fine mist, the large droplets having a larger inertia compared with their surface area. Most irrigators which have been devised for use over large areas have sought to achieve this, and the most commonly used at the present time is the type wherein a nozzle discharges a coherent jet of water which however is intermittently intercepted by a deflector vane, and impact of the deflector vane causes rotation of the nozzle.
However such prior art devices utilise bearing surfaces where solid surfaces rub on solid surfaces, and therefore are subject to mechanical deterioration and also to malfunction in the case of solid particles being contained in the water which is used for irrigation purposes.